After reserving the salt springs, lead mines and one section in each township, which is set apart for the support of schools, the residue is offered for sale at public auction under the proclamation of the President. In case the section offered does not bring one dollar twenty five cents per acre, it is not sold; but is held by the government, subject to be taken at any time afterwards at private sale at the minimum price of one dollar twenty five cents per acre, which is paid at the land offices of the district, in which the land is situated.

There are now fortytwo land offices, each under the superintendence of a Register and Receiver, who are appointed by the President and Senate of the United States. Until 1820, a credit was allowed on all purchases of public lands; but at that period it was found, that the influence of the land speculations was strong enough, to procure the passage of an act annually extending the terms of payment and remitting the interests.

In time this influence would have become so great, as to endanger the proprietary interests of the national government in this territory, and perhaps have destroyed the public tranquillity. With a foresight which reflects lasting honor on his character as a statesman, Rufus King brought forward a law requiring cash payments for the public lands; and relieving the speculators, by permitting them to relinquish the lands then held by them to the government. At the same time, the minimum price was reduced

from two dollars to one dollar twentyfive cents per acre.

The most beneficial effects have resulted from this change. The public debtor has been relieved, and the revenue from this source has increased instead of diminishing. The mode of surveying the public land does not permit any disputes, concerning the title to any particular tract. Several meridian lines are laid down, each forming the base of a series of surveys; so that the whole territory is divided into squares of one mile each, called sections, thirtysix of which form a township. The sections are divided into quarters and half quarters, and a settler can purchase a farm of eighty acres, the minimum price of which is one hundred dollars. About forty townships are surveyed in each land district annually, and the annual expense of surveying is about $70,000. Sometimes however, a greater appropriation for surveying is made, and a larger quantity of land exposed to sale.

When settlers occupy the public lands, as they often do, acts are occasionally passed granting them the preëmtive right, in case the lands do not bring more than the minimum price at public sale. Under this judicious mode of disposing of the public domain, the western and southwestern country has been gradually settled by a hardy and industrious race of farmers, who were protected in their civil rights by territorial governments established by the federal government; until they became sufficiently numerous to

be received into the confederacy as sovereign states. This has been done under the authority of congress an act being passed authorizing the formation of a State constitution, republican in its character, in which are inserted certain fundamental conditions in relation to the rights of the federal government to the public territory to the navigable riverssalt springs and to the lands granted for the purposes of education, internal improvement and for militiary services. In this manner the confederacy has been increased since 1802, by the admission of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama Alabama-states nearly equal in extent to the old thirteen states, that originally formed the Union, and possessing a population of 2,238,733 souls. Ohio the oldest of these new states, now only thirty years old, is the fourth state of the Union in point of numbers, having 937,679 inhabitants, and its largest town, Cincinnati, has 26,515 inhabitants.

As settlers are prohibited from occupying lands, to which the ludian title is not extinguished, they are compelled to settle within the limits of some territorial government. They are thus formed into social communities, and accustomed to the action of legal tribunals, which are maintained at the expense of the United States, instead of being lawless wanderers through a boundless wilderness, and distinguished from its original inhabitants merely by their complexion. In the habit of yielding obedience to the laws of the federal government, before

they are authorized to form a state constitution, they are more easily led to pay that qualified obedience to those laws, which is required after their admission into the Union. The confederacy is thus peacefully and gradually extended into the heart of the continent; and new states are added to it, as soon as their population becomes sufficiently numerous and dense to bear the expense of a state government.

The policy of the government thus tends to keep the settlers from scattering themselves too sparsely over the wilderness; while it affords, by the low price of the public lands, sufficient inducement for the enterprising to undertake new settlements; and by its liberal policy in making appropriations for internal improvement and education, prevents their feeling too sensibly their removal from the older abodes of civilized man.

The public domain is rendered more valuable by this mode of disposing of it; the new states are civilized and educated at the same time, that they are settled; an outlet is presented for the increasing population of the older states, so that it cannot, for an indefinite period, press upon the means of subsistence; and care is taken, that the new settlements do not advance rapidly, and so far into the wilderness, as to forget their connexion with the Union, and to be thus tempted to form themselves into independent communities.

Such are the chief considerations, which recommend the policy hitherto adopted by the United States in their administration

of the public territory. Its complete success could scarcely have been looked for by those, whose sagacity in framing, and untiring exertions in establishing that policy, entitle them to the gratitude of all succeeding generations. Its effects, however, have even now, scarcely developed themselves. The public lands which have been sold, do not form one tenth of the whole domain, and although they are at present of greater value, the same population which gave them that additional value by extending itself, must impart the same and even a greater value to that remaining unsold. It is easy therefore to estimate the vast importance to the interests of the country, both in present and future, of all questions affecting the public lands. A territory four times as large as the old Atlantic states, and containing double the number of acres in the twenty four states now composing the confederacy, with a soil unsurpassed for fertility, is yet to be occupied for the purposes of civilized man. That extensive and fertile territory is owned by the federal government, representing the people of the United States as one nation, and it is entrusted to that government, to be appropriated in such manner as shall best promote the national welfare.

The specific lien on its proceeds created by the national debt, is removed by the liquidation of that debt, and nothing remains to prevent the disposition of the public lands, according to the wisdom of Congress. In anticipation of the removal of this

lien an effort has been made, to entirely change the policy hitherto pursued by the government. Instead of selling the land as it is wanted, by which course that which is now valueless will be reserved for posterity, and that which is now sold will be occupied by a population growing up under the influence of civilization and the fostering care of the government: it has been proposed to invite Europeans, to migrate to the Western States, by donations of land to actual settlers. Others have proposed to give the lands to the states, within which they lie, for a nominal consideration. It has also been proposed to reduce the minimum price of lands, in order to hasten the settlement of the country. These are some of the propositions, that have been lately submitted to Congress as substitutes for a policy, which has produced such happy and extraordinary results as the one hitherto pursued.

They are all strongly marked with improvidence, and with a complete neglect of the lessons of the past and of the wants of posterity. By donations to the states of the lands lying therein, great injustice would be done; as the old Atlantic states would get nothing, and the states of Ohio and Indiana comparatively little, while the new states of Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois would each receive between thirty and forty millions of acres. By selling them to these states for an adequate consideration, a debt would be created beyond their ability to pay, and in the process of time the debt would be can

celled, or the affections of the debtor states alienated by an attempt to coerce payment.

The only pretence of reason for a modification of the policy is, that by lowering the price, and by donations to actual settlers, migration from Europe would be encouraged and the settlements of the West be hastened. This argument is founded upon the proposition, that it is better to have a numerous, than a happy and prosperous people. If the inhabitants of the United States were so few in numbers, as to be unable to protect themselves from foreign aggression, there might be wisdom in inviting migration from Europe. This, however, is no longer the case. A nation that has now 13,000,000 inhabitants and doubles itself in less than a quarter of a century, by its natural increase, needs no accession from abroad to swell its numbers. It has within itself the means of filling the wilderness with a homogeneous population; and it should be careful that the stability of our political institutions be not endangered, by too rapidly filling up the distant settlements with inhabitants, who from ignorance, foreign attachments, and early prejudices are unfitted to administer and sustain our peculiar system of govern

ment.

There is no necessity of settling the West faster than the natural increase of the nation will do it; and the descendants of American citizens, who have been nurtured in the habits of devotion to the Union, and of respect to its laws, will furnish a better

stock, than those who have been driven by improvidence or necessity from their native soil, to a country of whose institutions and laws they are utterly ignorant, and to which they can consequently, bear no well founded attachment. The public domain now presents territory, where the surplus population of the Union can extend itself for centuries to come; and from its extent and fertility it affords a strong security, that the American people will not be forced by density of population to that extremity of misery and crime, which is exhibited in Ireland and in the more populous counties of England. In extending themselves slowly over the continent, they will do it surely.

Time will be allowed for their political institutions to take root and to fasten themselves upon the attachments of the people. The federal government, known to them as first organizing them into political communities, and as protecting them from the inroads of savages and from intestine commotions, will be regarded with affection and confidence. They will become strongly bound to the Union by ties of early association, and the descendants of emigrants from the pleasant hills of New England, the verdant banks of the Hudson, and the sunny shores of the Chesapeake, when associated in new communities and states beyond the Rocky Mountains, will turn with feelings of respect and fraternal attachment towards the glorious scenes of that great political drama, that opened upon the field of Lexington, and received its crowning triumph upon the

plains of Yorktown. This brilliant prospect, however, cannot be realized through a policy, which would rapidly fill this vast territory with a population, driven by the improvidence of their fathers, or the cruelty of their governments from the shores of Europe. Ignorant, poor, discontented and unfitted to struggle with the difficulties of the wilderness, they would at best form a heterogeneous mass with all their early associations in favor of different institutions and other countries.

Here would be the elements of future discontents, and the materials for any advocate of disunion and separation to work with. Instead of proving a benefit, it would be a serious evil to the country to have the public territory hastily filled up by European emigrants, and this evil would be augmented by their being allowed to settle without order, and in distant and unprotected settlements, throughout the public domain. This refusal to bestow these lands as a bounty to invite emigrants to the United States is entirely consistent with hospitality to those, who seek our shores as an asylum from political persecution, and to those who come here in search of wealth or happiness. They may be safely admitted to the enjoyment of all civil rights, for such is the privilege of all living under the political institutions of the United States; but it is not necessary, in order to avoid the charge of inhospitality and illiberality to offer the public territory, purchased by the blood and treasure of our fathers, to serve as a poor house to the crowded

kingdoms of Europe. Still less is it advisable to divest the federal government of its control over that territory, and to permit it to be occupied by settlers unconnected with each other, subject to no established government, and unable and unwilling to bear the expense of organizing one for themselves. This might fill up the western wilderness, but it would do so by substituting the white for the red savage, who would at some future day punish our posterity for the fatuity of their fathers. A policy fraught with such consequences, never should be substituted for the wise and judicious policy, which has hitherto presided over the settlement of the western country. On the contrary, that policy ought to be fully carried out. The obstacles hitherto interposed by the national faith, to the general application of the proceeds of the public lands, having been removed by the discharge of the public debt, Congress is now at liberty to apply them in facilitating the intercourse between the states already settled, and in augmenting the value of the territory belonging to the federal government, by opening roads and making canals through the public domain. In this manner full returns will be received for the capital expended, and the nation will feel the benefits of this enlightened policy in the increased revenue from this source. By a judicious application of capital the value of land may be increased to an extent, that can scarcely be calculated; and though its cultivation cannot in any way be so well promoted